Name: Toivo Kulmala

Gender: Male, gay, he/him

Age/DOB: 20 / unknown DOB possibly around 2000

Origin: Rookery Earth, Norway, traveled quite a bit - note that he is found in RY4 and that this story below pre-dates some other events in the Rookery's history

Family: Now deceased from the invasions and other disasters

Other: used to travel and wandering the world, Toivo has seen a lot of things in his short life, and is open to new adventures

Height: 5'3", much shorter than his slender appearance makes him look

Weight: around 100, skinny nearing bony, but still strong enough to walk mile after mile in the wastelands and between Cities

Hair: hay blond, with a lot of copper in it, flyaway and fine texture, shaggy and kept to his jaw or high neck; it grows quickly so it's usually badly cut from him just grabbing a knife and getting it out of his face

Eyes: pale brown, nearly topaz yellow, large, slightly cross-eyed

Appearance: peaches and cream complexion with hardly any scars given how much of his life has been spent wandering the world. Attractive but shy looking, and uses the layers of his clothing (not all of it shown) to hide his blush or shy smiles. Wears an assortment of clothing found on journeys both before and after the Combine occupation of his planet, and somehow he hasn't frozen to death still wearing those skinny pants... has a somewhat high and scratchy voice, always sounds a bit surprised

Genetic Abilities: unknown, though Melissa has intended to figure out if his survival in cold weather is due to genetic predispositions or any kind of Vortal power

Icarus Processing: none, he would probably benefit physically, though it would likely also make him much lighter weight and he's already a feather

Image Credits: Meiker Identity Vogue / LouiRuii

Events or History: had been intending to go to art school and was traveling with cousins when the Combine invasion occurred. He never saw most of his family again, save for the cousin and her friends as they fled London - City 8 - but eventually even she was lost to the shuffle.

He was lost for quite a while in the snow and occasional oddly hot days traveling on foot northward to his home. The weather was so different now, but for the most part, up in the northernmost parts of the world, it was still dreadfully cold with winter, and truly beautiful and enjoyable during the summer. It was in summer that he arrived to his home town, somehow recognizing parts of the old and no longer maintained roads. There were no Combine here, at least none that could be seen or heard from their weird radio chatter or flying machine-creatures. No, he'd left them behind in City 14 - once known as Vienna, where art and culture had once prospered - and the ruins of whatever other properly-named cities existed around there. He came up to the town of Spangereid in the early morning. Toivo didn't see much he recognized, but then he'd been gone for so long... He knew from stories told by older refugees and people he'd met along his journey that sometimes even a few years could change the entire landscape of a home town.

Not like this. It was not all completely rubble, there were still a few intact buildings along the small harbor, though the boats were all tilted on their sides and had clearly been washed up by both tides and storms. No one was there to attend them, fix them up, put them back into use. That much was clear. The day too was clear, but cold as it always was. Toivo had been bundled up and shambling from place to place so long he hardly even realized what an odd appearance he had. It wasn't too windy, and wasn't snowing or raining, but it was already November and it was definitely growing cold enough to worry about what he'd do if he couldn't actually find a safe place to rest.

But his house was right there. Alone among the other ruins, or half-sound husks of structures, there on the north side of the 460, right across the inlet... How had it remained so pristine? And wait - was he dreaming? There were lights on? He hastened, all but tripping over his feet and the broken road to reach it. Warm light, proper electric lighting and not just a candle or trash bin fire? How?

***

Wilson felt the strangest sensation come to his ears. They weren't oversensitive like some of the Pantheon, keen but not so supercharged that he heard the panting or grit below shoes until they were right next to the house's real door.

Who the fuck was at this house's real door? It was nearing dark, he'd put the fire on and was thinking about dinner after a relaxing day hucking rebar and concrete blocks over at the Mesa into piles that the matter-manipulators would break down later. Good hard work. Now it was time to relax.

There was a knock at the door. Hesitant at first, but then more sure, more urgent. "Hello?" It was muffled, and it was in English. Well it was with a distinct accent, and then much more accented, "hallo?" He remembered that he was in fact in what used to be Norway. Huh.

With more hesitation than the timid first knock, Wilson stood and approached the door. There wasn't a peep-hole in it, and what did he have to lose? Nothing out there would be able to hurt him anyway, so...

There was a person, small - almost as small as Mars? - under a pile of haphazardly-collected coats and sweaters and scarves standing there on the concrete step. They hastily removed one layer of their hats, then another, and then brushed their blond hair out of their face. Cute kid, couldn't be more than a teenager?

"What - who are you? Why are you in my house?" That kid said, suddenly, confused looking and slightly angry sounding. He made one step - a very purposeful step with his shoulders forward and jaw set - into the doorway.

Wilson was so surprised to hear such a strange thing that he just stepped aside. "... Uhhhhhhhh. Well this is my house?"

"It is not?!" The visitor suddenly blurted out, whipping the last hat from his head and displaying more of that hay-blond hair, and a jaw line, long nose, and those big pale beer-colored eyes...

"You look... very familiar," Wilson said, oddly, brows furrowed.

"Well you don't look familiar at all? Why are you here?" The young man glanced around, and either didn't recognize certain things or was growing more aware that he was the invader and not the other way around.

"Because... I live here?" Wilson continued to ponder this, but then blinked a couple times, clearing his eyes and allowing some very old, rather unpleasant memories to resurface. "You do look like... Huh. You do look like your father don't you?"

"How do you know my -- who are you?" He sounded more desparate now, Toivo clutched three layers of headwear in his skinny-fingered hands and Wilson wondered why he didn't have better gloves than the ratty looking knitted fingerless things he had.

Wilson ground his jaw a bit, and thought harder, drew in a longer breath, and said, "kid, there's some things you need to understand about this house, me, and someone who isn't your father..."

The look on the young man's face was actually too much for Wilson to handle, he'd seen that kind of shattering before and he instantly regretted saying it that way. "Wait - wait, hey hey look, it's... not what you think, but it's okay," Wilson prodded, moved past him to shut the door. It had grown dark abruptly and the wind was kicking up properly now. "Come in, take this... stuff off, sit and rest, and I'll put on some soup. And I'll tell you what you'll need to know. Okay?"

Those gold eyes... they were far too much like Melissa's, and Lane always called them guilt - guilt has yellow eyes. Those eyes were glossy with tears about to brim right over, but he wiped his second or third hat across his face to prevent that embarrassment. As the kid started to remove layer after layer of ratty discarded clothing, Wilson went into the kitchen to distract himself and make dinner - now dinner for two. He heard the young man's breathing catch, he was definitely emotional - and if he had been Royce's kid... even on this world, well that might explain it.

It didn't take too long to heat up the stock pot and already-cooked cubed headcrab meat, and Wilson's hand reached in just the right direction to snag some fresh bok choy and carrots, onion, a leek. Those weren't in his pantry, they were literally across the planet in Eden's nice little garden at the Rookery proper, but hey no one needed to know that. Over the sound of Wilson's kitchen activities, the kid in the living room finally settled himself and began arranging his many coats on the one coat rack near the door. There was already a dramatic leather one there, obviously built for the imposing man in that kitchen.

"So who... are you?" He asked in a more timid voice than before. "I'm Toivo." His aggression spent, Toivo bit his lip and hoped for a better answer this time.

From the kitchen, Wilson said, "Wilson Carver, you ... won't know me, I wasn't here. Here-here." He stuck his head out from the nearby pale wood-walled kitchen, past the slightly elevated dining floor. The house was just as Toivo remembered it, save for a few new pieces of furniture in admittedly nice white leather and more pale wood, chrome and glass, and a set of photographs that showed people who were absolutely not his own family, resting on the stone mantel of the fireplace. Those photos had a variety of people, and Toivo began looking them over, as Wilson returned to his chopping and stirring.

"Who are these people?" Toivo asked again, head tilted, looking at a group picture of a large number of healthy-looking young people, and several of them were... really odd. Not ugly odd, just... One of them was flying. Floating. Her long black hair hooked around her arm. Two of the people looked very similar to this tall man in his kitchen, one with a full beard, the other clean shaven. This guy in the kitchen had a full set of stubble but no beard, but they all had the same hairline that's for sure, and something about them all just made Toivo nervous.

And because Wilson wasn't entirely mean and didn't want to surprise Toivo, he made sure to make just enough noise as he came out from the kitchen with two bowls of hot soup, placing them on the dinner table - only one side of that table had seen much use over the years, but he always kept the other seats and placemats just in case. It was actually kind of nice to have someone else to feed. But then Wilson was always like that: he had a protective streak that showed up in strange ways.

Toivo moved carefully to the table, and sat at what he knew to be 'his' side. Wilson was a massive man, but here he was clucking over whether to put a knife and fork out or just stick with the spoons? And water, of course water, maybe coffee or tea later...

Toivo watched Wilson with a strange curiosity. When he did finally seat himself it was after making sure the pots were off and the kitchen wasn't going to burn itself down. "At least you're taking care of the place, I guess?" Toivo said quietly. He smelled the soup while it had been cooking, and had hardly realized how hungry he was. Surviving outside for days or even weeks at a time with hardly anything more than a can of beans or vegetables, or the rare catch of eggs or a fish? Wilson could see his hands shaking with the urge to just pick the bowl up and toss it into his open mouth. That ... elicited a very old memory, one which was surprisingly welcome even though when it had been made was such a turbulent time in his life. Paxton, gulping down soup like he'd never had it before, after a long day of training in Xen.

But this boy here politely took the nice big wood spoon - almost all of Wilson's dishes were also wooden - and immersed it into the rich soup, slurping up the liquid and hardly pausing when he realized it wasn't 'chicken' but headcrab. He'd eaten plenty of those in his time wandering, and was thankful that none of them had eaten him.

After his second bowl, Toivo finally slowed down and had to lean back, full for the first time in perhaps a year. There was never 'enough', out there even in the Cities. Wilson had risen and was looking over those photos on the fireplace, picked one up, and brought it back to the table. He set it carefully down and slid it across to Toivo's side and had to resist the urge to move the soup bowl and spoon out of the way just in case he splashed any...

"Those people are my family," Wilson said, pointing out each of them in turn. It was quite the collection. "Keenan Lane, me there, my sons Geoff and Paxton, and their sons Meneleus and Vance, and Theseus. The girls got their own portraits." He tossed his head toward the fireplace; and indeed now that he thought about it, Toivo had recognized the same hairline and dramatic eyes on those women too. They all looked like they were about the same age, perhaps in their thirties and some a lot younger, all but the first - Keenan he said - who appeared mature, and Wilson, who just looked more ... experienced?

"Why are you in my family's house?" Toivo finally said, mouse-quiet. But with a full stomach he was both more bold and more settled than he'd been at first. Was he ready to hear this? Of course not.

Wilson brought in a long breath and held it while he thought. "This is going to take some explanation, and you're probably not going to like much of it, but I mean. It's the truth so that's all I can offer?" He waited for Toivo's nod to continue. "So. This... isn't exactly that house. First off."

Those gold eyes narrowed a little, but Wilson didn't allow Toivo much time to say anything.

"This is a... copy of a house, and it was put here on the ruins of the old one. You didn't think all those other houses in decay were it, right? I mean this house is right in the middle of it all." He lifted his hands to the window and the door, though it was completely dark out by now. The lights inside illuminated the ground, barely, mostly swallowed up by the nordic night.

"How?" Toivo managed to say.

Wilson licked his lips, "well it's not magic so much as power... But it might as well be." He tilted his head, "have you ever used computers?"

Toivo got a faintly offended look, "of course I have. Well I had, before. I was looking for a place to attend art school..."

"Oh! Well that's good, you'll get it then." Wilson smiled and nodded. "Imagine a file, you copy that file, and you paste it somewhere. This is that house. Copy-pasted, over a broken file."

"This isn't the Matrix, that's a movie," Toivo muttered.

"Oh no no - oh you had that movie here? huh..." Wilson distracted himself with that thought but only for a moment. "No, it's - the whole house. This version of it is a copy of the one I have ... elsewhere. Another earth. My home earth. I managed to keep it clean and neat, and I mean - let's face it, it's a nice house. Right?"

Before he could even stop himself, Toivo said, "yeah, it is--" And then realized, "but how?"

Wilson looked at him like he was slightly daft. "This world has alien invasions coming through holes in the sky, 'how'?" He chuckled. "I mean, I'm kind of one of them. Not them- them, I'm not Combine but I'm not from here. I'm from another earth. One quite like it." As he could see in the kid's eyes, realization started kicking in. It was likely that Toivo had quite an imagination but it had been stifled and worn down by the very terrible reality of their world in ruin. He had been looking for an art school in Vienna - and City 14 fell here harder than it had on his earth. He'd seen people who had moved from City 14, on his homeworld. The Combine had that effect on most people, really. All the refugees had that same vacant or terrorized stare at times. But sometimes they held ... hope. And this kid's name meant hope.

"I'm from a world where... well, to keep it on topic," Wilson said slightly more subdued and quietly, "where your father in that dimension hired me to kill someone, and I did, and then he didn't pay me, so. I ... took the payment the way I saw fit." He moved his hands slightly to indicate the home, and pushed his thin lips together in a line, not saying the obvious.

It did take a moment or two to sink in; Toivo furrowed his pale brows and also put his lips into a frown. But it was still a 'thinking' frown. "Why are -you-" he glanced faintly at the family portrait, "here?" Toivo asked, again, but the emphasis was different.

"I wasn't here in this dimension," Wilson continued, "I didn't exist here. Which..." he glanced around thoughtfully, "may be why some of this went down like it has, with the invasion."

"So important are you?" Toivo said, not quite short with him.

"No, no it just means... that other people may have done things ... a bit differently. In fact I know they did." He looked down at the family portrait. Pointedly, at Keenan. "When I'm not here it means that other conditions aren't met - and we've... Researched it a little, when those conditions are met, the Combine are defeated." He looked back up at Toivo. "And that's why we are here on this world. This version of earth. Where I copy-pasted my home from its original ... well, from an original, I guess, because there's like four of them now," he stopped himself from blathering, "This world, where we are going to defeat the Combine. We did it in ours, we started traveling around to other dimensions. Found this one, or maybe it found us, I guess. So now we're settling in and the dragons are helping us so much more than the--"

"The dragons." Toivo said, scoffing. "Dragons aren't real but you're not the first person who's said something about it. I met some guys in City 14 that swore up and down they saw them. They were just Combine airships."

"They were not," Wilson's lips pulled into a broader grin, a knowing smile. That smile and look on his face dared Toivo to go ahead and challenge it.

"Dragons. pff." Toivo put his arms across his chest, leaning back.

"There are aliens coming through holes in space and you think dragons aren't real?" Wilson prodded. "Here - come outside with me just a second. I know it's cold, it'll be just a moment."

With some hesitation, Toivo stood (he was full and warm why would he ever want to go out into the windy cold!?) and followed the massive man. Wilson was at least a full foot taller than he, and broader by three of him... He could probably have picked Toivo up with one hand and thrown him like a javelin. Toivo actively had to suppress a chuckle at that thought. He'd read some kind of comic book years ago with such a thing...

Outside it was dark and quite chill, but not snowing, not raining, the night was crisp but clear. The moon was all but invisible if it even was up at this time and wouldn't be lending any light. Still it was easy to see the lines of the house, clean and vertical, angled roofs, multiple large upright windows in a very artistic and unusual architectural style. Standing just far enough away to see the entire house against the rugged, grassless ground, Wilson stood behind Toivo and put one hand toward the house.

"This is my house. And..." he exerted some strange willpower, maybe it was a mental or psionic vision, because it sure wasn't him 'moving the house'. (That was well beyond his Vortal pay grade after all. He hadn't moved it here, Lane had.) Toivo blinked, blinked harder and several more times, because what he then saw was a blank, rubble strewn hill with a single stone pillar, the chimney to the home, standing amid a worn down pile of burnt and battered wood, bricks, a single twisted strand of rebar where the second story had been built.

He blinked again and the home was intact. Something in Toivo's gut twisted around. "That..." He didn't get much more out, Wilson was urging them back inside where it was warm, bright, inviting, smelled delicious.

"That was the house that had been here in this dimension. I didn't rebuild it from that. I took a copy of it and had it moved here. You don't really want to know where the electricity and plumbing are coming from do you?" He winked, a smirk trying to break the tension. "Look, I know it's... a lot. A lot to take in. But you know what? You seem like a tough enough kid. You - you walked here didn't you? There's no train or boat." Wilson narrowed his eyes and looked south, "at least I hope there's no boat, that won't do."

"I walked, yeah, I... took the rail until I couldn't any more and then walked along it. There are still a few people here and there. Not too many Combine I guess. Plenty of headcrabs."

Wilson chuckled again, nodding at the kitchen, "yeah there's always a lot more of them where they came from."

"Where did they come from?" Toivo asked. Wilson stood beside him as the kid reached for another bowl of soup. The look on the taller man's face wasn't obvious to Toivo, so intent was he on getting more of that meat and deliciously spiced soup.

"I can tell you, in fact I can show you - with a little help from my dragon..."

Toivo put the soup bowl down with a faint clunk on the marble counter. "Oh come on you're--"

"Tash!" Wilson said, perhaps a little louder than needed for indoors. But... something moved, something made the floorboards slightly creak with weight - just like they would do if his uncle had been walking around in the larger pantry behind the kitchen. Surely there was still a pantry there because those veggies didn't grow themselves...

"I do not fit inside, you keep telling me not to come farther in," a voice said. Thick, oddly accented voice. Voluminous though, whatever had produced it had big lungs. Almost like a Vortigaunt, maybe, it had a resonance to it. Maybe this Wilson guy just had a Vortigaunt and called it a dragon?

Wilson pulled on Toivo's shoulder once he was satisfied that the bowl of soup wasn't going anywhere. "Come on, we'll go see him instead." Wilson sounded just a little giddy. "This," he waved when the door to that pantry opened to a very strange dark landscape and not the well-lit stone-floored wood-cabineted pantry that was expected of it, "is Tashtinath."

The black faced dragon had bright red eyes, and strange small markings between them. It trotted right up, happy to see Wilson and curious about this... other.

Toivo stood and tried so very hard not to flinch, not to squish his eyes shut, as if closing his eyes could make a dragon vanish. It had made a house blink back into reality, maybe it would work here.

"It won't," the dragon spoke again, while sniffing still, "I'm here for good." Finally satisfied, Tashtinath stood back and appraised this newcomer. "I like him, keep him."

"I thought you would," Wilson said with a light laugh. "Toivo, Tash means vanity, he's definitely mine." Wilson glanced beyond the dragon, however, and said, "and don't think I don't see you over there, Lane."

While it went right by him for just a moment, Toivo did glance up at that name - hadn't he said it before? He had, and there was that guy? Walking right up in a dark blue business suit and tie? Who wore those things now? And, "where are we?!" Toivo realized that the strange dark landscape was absolutely not the outside of his house - Wilson's house - whoever's place. It was vast, smelled very strange, and had floating fractured islands in a brilliant green and orange nebula-spattered sky.

***

Lane politely declined the soup, reheated after a half-hour explanation about 'this is Xen and that's where headcrabs are coming from' to Toivo. The young man sat on the one chair nearer the fireplace, hunched over a bit by habit to conserve heat, elbows on his knees. He had the look of someone who'd seen a ghost - but also, who hadn't believed in ghosts until he literally saw a dragon and a weird space manta-ray flying in the alien sky there. Now, maybe, what? ghosts? goblins, dragons, elves?

"And more," Lane slyly said, and Wilson glared daggers right at him.

"Don't do that in my house, Lane, it's rude." Wilson asserted. And then Lane chuffed a little laugh, took in a breath.

Before he got another word out, though, and obviously used to this kind of banter, Wilson interrupted him before he could speak, "and yes I know it's not 'my' house, he knows it's not 'my' house, it's my house now dammit."

That actually caused Toivo to burst out with his own snorting laugh, relieved, but also a bit crazy-edged. "This is how you treat your dad?"

"Oh he is not my dad," Wilson said, "and the other one isn't either," he added quickly.

"So you keep saying, but he says otherwise," Lane smirked.

Toivo had a weird sense that they would be worse if he let them team up on him. His cousin and her friend would do that - individually they were fine but get them together? Someone was going to get absolutely harassed.

But it... It felt good in a way. Remarkably good. Maybe he'd been away from people too long. Maybe the travel across the Combine-destroyed world had started truly taking its toll on his spirit. But even these two complete strangers, one of whom obviously looked so much like that other guy in the photo it was hardly a stretch to think of him as Wilson's 'dad', made him laugh out loud and relax into the idea that maybe dragons existed, and maybe.

Just maybe, the dragons could help them destroy the Combine.

It did turn out that this Lane was 'not' the same one in the photo. Toivo's third bowl of soup and a fresh mug of great coffee, and the warmth of the fireplace had a profound effect on him. It reawakened that namesake hope, his creative energy. Wilson and Lane were discussing 'where to put him'. In a bit of a daze, Toivo asked, "do you need an artist? A...anywhere?"

"The Borealis is right nearby," Lane said, "more convenient to this place I suppose though the commute would be difficult without a dragon."

"The Borealis doesn't need an artist, they need shipmates and theoretical physicists," Wilson said. He looked at Toivo to answer him. "But we do need people who have skills like those," he glanced down where he'd put his single weatherbeaten satchel, which held precious things. Art paper, pencils, pens. Things that had kept him sane in this troubling times.

"And you know what?" Wilson added a moment later, looking more at the house, the ceiling and stairwell to the second floor nearby, "I could also use an artist. Someone who can help me put this neighborhood back together." It sounded more like a question, a hint, a suggestion. "I mean, if you don't mind the cold. There's ..." Wilson paused, blinking and pulling in a guilty breath, "probably what used to be your room, guest room now, that you can use until you get your own home designed."

"What, and then you copypaste it?" Toivo snorted over the last of his coffee. It had been years since he'd had any, it wasn't available anywhere except if you found a sealed can or an un-looted shop. Those were few and far between.

"I would," Lane said, "seems all I'm good for, these days."

"It helps to have a local energy signature," another voice said, startling Toivo - it wasn't... it wasn't a new voice, it was the same as Lane's, only it was coming from the entry of the house? And - from, the other Lane. The one in the photo.

"This is so confusing," Toivo muttered, and Wilson patted his shoulder, also muttering I know, I know.

"Tashtinath will be thrilled," Keenan said, finding his own mug and filling it without asking, in the kitchen. Toivo noted that the first one stiffened slightly with his arrival. This other one wore a black suit with a teal colored tie, to the violet one that Lane had. Otherwise they were twins. They were more than twins and both of those otherwordly men read the kid's mind clearly enough to know that he put the words 'they aren't twins they're the same guy from different dimensions' together without even having to prod for them. He was a smart young man, he'd do nicely among the scientists and even among the Pantheon. That was communicated between Keenan and his clone - son - Wilson, without hesitation.

"Look, I've said this a lot tonight but," Toivo sighed, looking at the other-other man, and noting that he had a slightly friendlier demeanor, a more casual posture, where Lane was still reasonably stiff even while enjoying his coffee in the other chair. "How did you get here?"

"I teleported, my boy, it's what we're best at." He said it so casually, and the half grin was echoed on that 'local' Lane; and Toivo was about to be very distressed, but then again there was a door to a completely alien dimension in the pantry, and a dragon in there too. His astonishment at all of this kept coming back because there seemed to always be more things to be astonished by.

"Wait until you meet the ladies," Keenan said, fondly picking up the family photo on the mantel and letting a gentle smile cross his otherwise stern-looking features.

***

Those ladies did include Melissa, who absolutely gushed about how healthy - if skin and bones - Toivo was. That she did so in the Black Mesa Dragon Rookery in New Mexico, and not up in Spangereid Norway the next morning, that was what astonished him most. Teleporting was an adventure, but he was told he should get used to it: they used the power themselves, but some of them also had dragons that could do it, and they also-also had technology aboard that ship and some other locales?

This Rookery had been busy - collecting people, digging through ruined places and making them fit for living in again. As Melissa was finishing up doing whatever odd blood tests and research, Wilson once more approached Toivo, this time with a second dragon nearby. Tashtinath was so much chunkier than this other black dragon, whose legs were longer and more muscular, wings were considerably larger, and that tail was definitely not as... thick as the red and black's. Keenan's dragon Denhadarvahth - a mouthful to say - was still just about the same height at the shoulder but wow they were very different indeed.

They showed only a few of the differences, there were more and more of the things swooping around outside the Mesa. Toivo got a brief lesson about how the group acted: the Pantheon were... super heroes. Powered people, with strange abilities. That lady in the one picture who flew? Yeah, she had two kids who also flew around the place. 'Kids' his age. He met a few of the people in those photos too, though a lot of them were busy or a touch stand-offish, on their way to doing other things. It was overwhelming, but energizing to him.

"So he wants you to help make the village, huh?" Melissa said, when she was mostly done with the tour. She insisted on holding on to him, she was mighty up-close-and-personal. A little too close, but even she recognized when she introduced him to Nigel that he was far more interested in that dark-skinned handsome man than her. It turned out also - that Nigel had some amount of experience with art, civil engineering, oh this would be a great way to integrate into the Rookery! Melissa nudged him over to Nigel, who seemed to glow with a halo of light - and it wasn't just his starry-eyed sudden crush. No, he glowed, because he could manipulate light.

Turned out it would be more of a professional relationship later but ... it also looked like these Pantheon folks were fast and loose with personal connections. That suited him fine for the moment, they still needed to figure out 'where' to go for a dragon. There were bunches of them here, but it would be a couple years before they would have eggs on their 'sands'. Oh yeah - he was being taught about dragon care, information to tuck away and expand when he came home from wherever-it-would-be.

He had sudden access to things like art supplies, fresh clothing that was tailored for him by Wilson? The place was a city filled with refugees and dragon riders but it was so filled with life too!

Toivo took Wilson aside when they were getting him some new shoes fit for colder weather. "I'll stay in my room," he said, "and ... then I guess I'll start making some sketches. I always loved how our house looked different from the ones in the village," those were older, more sedate, less 'ostentatious nordic bungalow' than the Kulmala house. "But we need to keep the Combine away too, I wouldn't want to build a bunch of things and then just have them come blow it all up again."

The way he said 'again' tore at Wilson's heart.

"We have some ideas already," Nigel said, finding them after a bit of asking around the Mesa. "I'll follow your lead and make sure that all the pipes are fit into," he waggled his fingers, "whatever it is they do when they put buildings down."

"This has happened before?" Toivo asked, not really shocked but definitely still not used to it all. It looked like Nigel was also still a little weirded out by it.

"Yeah, when they moved the Mansion."

Toivo blinked a few times, "they have a mansion?"

"You'll tour it when you're ready," Wilson said, and this time he was backed up by Keenan, who had reappeared in that weird green-orange glowing ball of energy whenever he teleported. Toivo watched that numerous times, he seemed quite enamored of showing off to new folks, everyone else was used to it by now.

Keenan stepped closer, "I suppose that you'd enjoy some of the books in my library, too," he pondered. "But that will wait - because I've... found something for you." He smiled, and for all the world it was so much more fatherly than his own real father had ever given him... "It is called Lantessama, and there is an icy event going on. If you're going to be residing in your... birth-village, they seem quite well-suited to this."

He presented images, how he got them no one knew, of a group of stunningly pretty deer-like dragons. Toivo knew they were dragons because they had wings, long tails. Glowy bits. They were gorgeous, they were absolutely inspirational. They would fit right in. Even if Wilson spent most of his time in their house - Toivo decided to call it 'their' house just to get the laugh out of the big man - Toivo had always loved going on walks and playing in the snow. He was skinny and needed to bundle up, but he still felt like a kid again when they reached this place and he saw their amazing world for the first time.

Dragon

Name:
Gender:
Size/Shoulder/Length:
Colors:
Features:
Powers:
Parentage:
Origin: Lantessama Winter 2022
Other Info: